


Pilot's Dance

by jamwrites



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Fluff, Gay, I am so tired, I don't even know what this fic is anymore, M/M, Reyva, Stormpilot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-12
Updated: 2016-04-11
Packaged: 2018-06-01 18:46:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6531685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jamwrites/pseuds/jamwrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Poe tries to throw a celebratory dance together for his boyfriend on the Resistance base, but of course, Poe is a pilot, not a dance-planner.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pilot's Dance

“You want me to do _what_?” General Organa raised a single eyebrow at Poe. He grimaced. It was kind of amazing, the effect that woman had. He had seen many a lesser cadet shake in their flight suits in the face of the general’s cool gaze, and he couldn’t blame them. He still got shivers down his spine when Organa gave him the Look...like the one she was giving him at this very moment, for instance.

He braced himself. “A dance, general. I’m requesting that you throw a dance.”

“For the Resistance. A dance.”

“Yes.”

“A dance in _my_ base.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Leia sighed and sat back in her chair, folding her hands in her lap, staring at Poe. He tried to flash her a grin, but it quickly died on his face. Maybe this hadn’t been such a great idea.

But no, he had to this. It was important.

“General,” he started, “I think this is important. To everyone.”

“Let me stop you right there,” she said. That eyebrow was still raised. He couldn’t for the life of him tell whether it was in exasperation, amusement, or something strangely in between. She was unreadable, more stone cold than a frozen asteroid belt. “Commander Dameron, you’re asking me to clear off the schedules of hundreds of very busy people for an entire evening. To cancel at least five missions, halt the delivery of gods-know how many transports worth of relief supplies, reroute satellite arrays, all for...a dance.”

“A really important dance.” He whipped out the most charming grin in his arsenal. It was a crooked smile that had made many grown men blush, but it slid right off the general.

Leia Organa picked up a stylus and turned it over and over in her hand, tapping the end against her desk with each revolution. “Do you want to tell me what this is really about?”

She had him. “Uh--”

“Poe,” she said, still twirling the stylus. “I understand that you and your friends are tired--nobody can empathize with you more than more than me--but there’s simply too much to be done-”

“It’s for Finn,” he blurted.

Oh no. Had that really just come out of his mouth? Now he had done it. But he had to! But it didn’t matter. Now he was well and truly dead.

Organa’s eyebrow traveled further up her forehead. “For Finn.” Wait. Was that a hint of a smile he spotted at the corners of her lips? “Well then, by all means, explain yourself.”

A few minutes of hard bargaining later, Poe emerged from the general’s quarters victorious. He was going to be flying double duty for a long time, but it was so, so worth it.

 

**

 

 He only had a few days to prepare. The sol that Organa had found for them wasn’t far off, which meant that he, Rey, and Jessika had a lot of planning to do in very little time. Luckily, the dance had been Jess’s idea, and she had been planning it in her head for longer than he knew.

Poe had no idea what the girls expected to find in the way of party decorations on a grimy Resistance base in the Outer Rim, but when he told them as much he had been shushed and hurriedly shooed out of Rey’s quarters. The last he had seen of the two, they had been sitting on Rey’s bed together, conspiring like they were the fabled Rogue One squadron about to pull of some secret invasion.

 “You have your own work to do,” Jess had said as she pushed him out of the room. “I promise that we won’t screw this up. Now _go_.”

That left Poe to wander the halls of the base. Somehow he had ended up with a tiny gap in his schedule between patrol flights, but Finn was all tied up in the medical bay with new patients, and even BB-8 was off getting a software update. which left him with...nobody, really. He could go hang out with Snap or anyone else on his squadron, but somehow their loud and boisterous company didn’t seem like something he wanted just then.

Besides which, Jess was probably right. Finn was going to get out of the med bay at some point, and by then Poe had to have his proposal ready. What was he going to say? Finn was going to be dead tired by the end of his shift...maybe he wouldn’t want to go to a surprise dance. Maybe this was all a dumb idea anyway.

Poe cursed under his breath. Of course this wouldn’t work. He had wanted to do something nice for Finn, but he had ended up planning something that he, Poe, would love. Finn wasn’t a party guy. Well, that wasn’t technically true. Finn had never been to a party. But Poe knew people, and he knew that Finn would hate what they were planning. Gods, he was the most egotistical son of a Bontha he knew. He should back to the girls right now and tell them to call the whole thing off--

“Poe!” There it was. That deep voice that Poe would know anywhere. He turned, and there was the owner of the voice, jogging down the corridor. The bigger man was still in his nurse’s scrubs, and covered with grime and dirt and other fluids that Poe didn’t care to identify. He couldn’t help himself; he broke out into a smile when he saw his boyfriend.

Finn didn’t stop moving until he was wrapping his arms around Poe to lift him up in a gigantic hug. A few moments later, Finn pulled away and smiled at Poe, and Poe could have sworn lightning struck in his stomach at the sight that smile. He leaned forward and kissed Finn.

“I thought you weren’t getting off until later,” he said into Finn’s mouth.

“Surgery ended early.” Finn kissed Poe again, slipped his hand into Poe’s. A couple of pilots jogged past in formation, so the two of them slipped into a small alcove in the wall. “This woman was a real trooper. Pulled through just fine. I saw Rey earlier too; she said you had something to tell me?”

“Oh.” Poe sucked on his lower lip. Rey. He was going to have to have words with that girl. “Yeah, I just...uh…” he punched Finn in the shoulder. “I just wanted to tell you that I love you, buddy.”

Finn raised an eyebrow, and for a fleeting but terrifying moment, looked exactly like General Organa. His boyfriend’s arms were still looped around his back, and like it or not, Finn was a lot stronger than Poe. He pulled Poe closer, hand slipping down a little closer to his butt.

“Really, man? You were going to try to back out on the dance?”

“What?” Poe blinked. “Are you--did Rey--how...what?”

“It wasn’t Rey’s fault.” Finn laughed softly, and Poe’s heart did a flip-flop. “You have Jess to thank. I saw her this morning before her coffee, said there was a dance tonight. Well, she was kind of a zombie, you know Morning Jess, but I think there was something about a dance in there. I think it would be fun for all of us to go, don’t you? I’ve never been to one.“

“Oh. Uh--” Finn didn’t know all of it. How could he? Poe didn’t know everything about First Order life, but he was pretty sure being asked to a dance wasn’t part of their culture. Well, that was just going off the gigantic stick shoved up Kylo Ren’s ass, but still. “Actually, I wasn’t planning on going with everyone.”

Finn looked baffled. “What? What do you mean?”

“Well, uh, you see, dances are something that you’re asked to. Like a date. So I thought I would ask you to our dance--”

“Our dance?” Finn sucked in a breath. “Finn, this dance was you?”

“Well, yeah. Rey and Jess too.  Actually, I kind of…” Here it was. This was where Finn pulled away because why would he want to go to a dance? Finn was just pretending to want to go because Rey and Jess wanted to. A dance wasn’t Finn. A dance was stupid, stupid Poe.

“Hey.” Finn’s hand cupped Poe’s chin, turned it upward. Gods, Finn was so gentle. “What’s wrong?”

“I was going to ask you to go.” Poe sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “I wanted to throw a dance for you, because it’s the one year anniversary of...you know.” He reached around and put his hand on Finn’s back, inside his shirt. He brushed Finn’s scar ever so slightly, the scar that ran diagonally from Finn’s shoulder all the way down to his waistline.

And then, suddenly, it was all flowing out of him. “It was stupid of me. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Because why would you like parties, a party thrown for--for your scar? For you almost dying? Why would you ever celebrate that? And I’m just realizing now how much of a jerk I am, and I’m sorry, we don’t have to go, Finn. I’m sorry.”

Silence. Stretching on and on. At least, it felt like a long time. Like forever. And then Finn’s hand was on Poe’s chin again, pulling him up, up to meet his lips. Finn kissed him so soft it almost wasn’t a kiss at all.

“You idiot,” Finn said, kissing him again and again, softer than a pillow, softer than air. “Poe, I love you, you incredibly handsome, dashing idiot.” Finn pulled back an inch and smiled at him. Poe was surprised to see tears in Finn’s eyes. “You’re not celebrating me almost dying, Poe. Today isn’t the anniversary of the day I got the scar.” And then Finn was kissing Poe so hard it hurt. But it was a good hurt. The kind he wouldn’t trade for anything. “One year ago today, I got out of that medbay for good. Today’s the day I _lived_.”

They made out in the corridor for a while, oblivious to passers-bys. Poe laughed into Finn’s lips. Well, half laughed, half cried. But only a little. He truly was the most self-centered person in the system. So much so that he couldn’t even see it when he tried to something for someone else. That, or this was just Finn’s incredible ability to find the good in anything showing itself again. Poe might have a hard time thinking of others, but Finn couldn’t think of himself for his life. They balanced each other.

 _I love this boy,_ Poe thought. He also loved the way he fit perfectly against Finn’s chest. The feel of Finn’s hand on his lower back. The taste of Finn’s neck, his cheek, his mouth.

“So,” Finn said, some time later. “I believe that you had something to ask me?”

Poe laughed into Finn’s mouth. “I despise you.” But he did it anyway. Slowly, his thighs still aching from his most recent workout, Poe got down on one knee, took a small box out of his pocket. He opened it, and inside was a small corsage of flowers. They were from his most recent mission, picked while he had a few minutes to breath in a nameless, beautiful, war-torn planet’s atmosphere.

“Finn,” Poe said. “Will you go to this dance with me?”

“Of course.” Finn grinned and hauled Poe to his feet. He was rewarded with another kiss that tasted of cinnamon and toothpaste and something very uniquely Finn. “But what’s with the flowers?”

“They’re called a corsage. Here, let me.” Poe worked on fastening the flowers to Finn’s chest. Finn’s scrubs were downright nasty, but he could live with it. He stepped back, admiring his work, and then ran a hand across Finn’s chest to smooth out his shirt. He left his hands there for a few moments: Finn’s muscles were not something to be abandoned lightly.

“I love it,” Finn said, smiling down at the flowers, and then up at Poe. “I love you. Even if your attempts at romance are a little misguided.”

“Hey now, you said yourself they were good.”

Finn laughed. Gods, that laugh. Poe swore it could cure old age.

Poe’s boyfriend put his arm around Poe’s waist. “Come on, let’s go. We have places to be. I’m sure the girls have something magnificent planned.”

“I hope so.” Poe rested his head on Finn’s shoulder as they walked. “This was the only part of the whole thing I was allowed to do. Had to fight for that, even.”

And with that, they set off through the base, occasionally talking but mostly just enjoying one another. That was the part of Finn that he liked best, Poe decided. The part that connected to other people so easily, understood them even if they didn’t understand themselves. The part that made him Finn and not FN-2187.

“Ready for your first dance?” He asked when they arrived at the door.

Finn glanced at Poe. “Not really sure what to expect.”

Poe squeezed Finn’s hand, straightened his corsage. “I wasn’t sure what to expect when you asked me to be your pilot. That turned out pretty well, though.”

“Yeah, pretty well.” Finn kissed Poe’s cheek. “Let’s go, then.”

The door slid open, and in they went. Poe had no idea what the evening had in store for them, but he knew that so long as Finn was there, it couldn’t be that bad.

It could never be bad.


End file.
